Immortal Flame (2 page)

“Not this morning. Last night was pretty tame, long may it last.” He made the sign of a cross, merrily kissed his fingers, and raised them as his eyes twinkled. Buddy, cheerful even when tired, was nothing if not consistent with his superstitions.

“Don't jinx me.” She patted him on the back, careful not to touch his skin.

“Hey, Al, did you consider my offer to set you up with that physical therapist?” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his stubbled jowls. “He'd be a perfect match. Educated, outdoorsy, probably a good family guy. Cute, but not too metrosexual. Ruggedly handsome.”

She cringed. A family guy? God, no. Too many risks. The possibility of another vision of a loved one filled her with cold terror. She couldn't trust herself to invest in a relationship when all she would think about was when that next vision of death would arrive. No, thank you. She wasn't putting herself through that pain ever again.

At least working in the hospital allowed some semblance of purpose, an opportunity to perform penance. Here she could make a difference, atone for the devastating knowledge her ability yielded. If she had the power to randomly see the death of people she touched, at least the medical training gave her the ability to save other peoples' lives. Saving someone—anyone—made up for the inevitable deaths she predicted. Her gift might have been easier to manage if she got images when she touched every person, or if she knew which people would trigger her visions, but no, she received sudden, random pain instead. The nasty surprises never got easier, even after years of avoiding hugs, declining to brush her niece's hair, and refusing to kiss her own sister's cheek at her wedding. Allison only risked direct touch when she had no other choice. She only risked touch when she felt emotionally braced, and that wasn't often.

“Aw, thanks for thinking of me, Buddy, but I've got enough on my plate right now. Why don't you get on home? Enjoy your day off.”

• • •

A few hours later, an ambulance pulled up to the entrance of the Grande Ronde ER, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Allison raced out of the warm ER into the crisp air, her body heated by zips of adrenaline. Already gloved up, she met the patient as the EMTs called for help to unload his gurney from the ambulance. The patient moaned and strained against the backboard straps, then lapsed into unconsciousness. Her five-second assessment as they rolled him into the ER was grim: facial trauma, bleeding flap of scalp that was thankfully still attached, loss of consciousness.

“Are there more victims?” she asked an EMT.

The EMT maneuvered the gurney into the small trauma room. “No, just this lucky guy. His car launched over the interstate barrier and down the embankment. He almost went into the creek.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. At least she could focus on one patient. “Do we know anything about this guy? Name? Age? Any medical problems?”

The EMT shrugged. “State troopers told us to get him to the hospital and they'd look for ID later.”

Then she'd have to work blind. “Let's get a cross-table C-spine stat. And a trauma panel.”

Nurses and EMTs carefully transferred the patient, who lay still and silent, secured on the backboard, to the ER bed. The staff unstrapped the man and quickly cut away his bloodstained T-shirt and faded jeans. An empty knife holster on his lower leg gave her pause, but her curiosity disappeared with the rest of his clothing. At last, they had him draped in a hospital gown and covered with a starched hospital sheet.

Allison placed the bell of her stethoscope over the man's broad chest. Normal heart rate. Lungs clear. Pressing on his ribcage dusted with dark hair and his flat abdomen, she found no crepitus or rigidity. She inhaled deeply.

A nurse raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”

“No trace of alcohol or drugs.” All she smelled was the metallic scent of blood and a typical male essence like almonds and very faint cologne.

With the Velcro straps off, the staff carefully logrolled him to one side, a maneuver that kept his neck, spine, and hips in safe alignment so she could evaluate his back for injuries. Once the staff rolled him back onto the backboard and re-secured the wide straps, radiology personnel shot a quick neck x-ray.

A final assessment of his muscled extremities completed the exam. She felt oddly flushed, like his skin radiated too much heat. Strange.

When she touched him, a vibration flowed through her gloved hands. She had never gotten a vision through gloves. Then again, she'd never gotten a warning signal, either. What the hell was going on here? The vibration jolted up her arms.

Oh God, not now. Please wait until I finish treating this man. Please.

“Do we have a set of vitals?” she asked.

Her patient breathed on his own, unlabored. An old, scratched watch with a dried leather band was fastened around his thick, tanned wrist. Despite the horrific bruises over his body, only his head injury needed intervention. Damn it, she had to examine his wound. She shook her hand, hesitated, then took a deep breath and braced herself. When she lifted the palm-sized flap of scalp, it bled into his dark hair until she taped the gauze back down. She could repair the wound after the CT scan. Jerking her hand away from the buzzing sensation, she pulled off her gloves and replaced them with a clean pair.

She stepped away from her patient and relaxed. Maybe this man's injuries weren't as life threatening as she had initially thought.

The EMT frowned. “Blood pressure is one thirty over ninety, pulse eighty, respiration sixteen, temperature … 107?”

“Okay.” She stared at the EMT. “Wait. What? Could you retake that temperature, please? That can't be right.”

“Ma'am, I already rechecked it with a different machine. It's 107.3 to be exact.”

With her heart thudding, she searched the unconscious man for obvious signs of infection or malignant hyperthermia from drug use, anything to explain the temperature reading.

“Start him on IV fluids and get a cooling blanket hooked up.”

Screw those visions, she had to touch him again. She needed to figure out what was wrong with this patient before his brain fried.

She eased his eyes open and flashed her penlight. Normal pupillary responses. The deep brown, almost black color of his eyes surprised her with their darkness. His open eye locked onto hers and focused, at the same time a blast of vibration drilled from his face through her hand.

The depth of that gaze pulled her like a particle into a black hole. Her heart expanded then contracted, and her breath caught. Vertigo washed over her. She grabbed the IV pole for balance. The rush of vision took hold, blocking out all sound, like voices obscured by a stiff wind. Faces swam too quickly to make out details. Far in the distance of her mind's eye, the focus sharpened onto a man. She could see—

A radiology tech tapped her on the arm. “Doc? Doc?”

Allison moved her hand away. The patient's eye fell closed, and the vortex sensation ebbed.

For the space of two breaths, she felt like a woman surfacing from under water. “Yes?”

“C-spine x-ray is here for your review, and CT is warmed up and ready if this guy's okay to go.” The tech passed her a plastic film.

The nurses turned on the water-cooling blanket now draped over the man. Allison could run him through the scanner with the blanket on top of him. But damn it, why was his temperature so high? Broken neck? Head injury?

She lifted the film to the light. No obvious vertebral fracture, so it was safe to move the patient. “Sure thing. I'll go with you.”

Once they arrived in the CT room, the staff transferred the man's backboard into the scanner, handling the man with ease, though to look at him, he must have been 200 pounds of solid muscle. This guy gave Captain America a run for his money.

The machine whirred and hummed. Images of his head, thorax, and abdomen slowly downloaded onto the computer screen. Allison leaned forward. No obvious internal bleeding or spinal injuries. No chest or abdomen damage. The overview scan revealed callus formation on his skull, forearm, and ribs, no doubt from old, healed fractures. A few minutes later, the standard scan images appeared. Where she'd noted callus formations before, now there were none. These new scans belonged to a man with no previous fractures. But how?

She glanced between the crash victim and his inconsistent scans. How did a man crash at fifty-five miles per hour and destroy his vehicle without so much as a hairline fracture? And what would explain the hyperthermia?

Allison rubbed her tight neck muscles. “What do you think? I'm not a radiologist, but it looks good to me.”

The tech gave the okay sign and put a finger to his lips. “I'll have the radiologist call in a few minutes with the official word. This guy was lucky.”

“Yeah, lucky.” She stared at the screen and then back to the enigma on the other side of the lead glass window.

When the staff moved him back to the trauma room, his feet hung over the end of the gurney. He had to be well over six feet tall, maybe mid-thirties, probably a healthy guy. So why the temperature? Why the ghosts on the CT scan?

She reviewed the labs. White cell count was normal. Okay, so no infection. Drug screen negative. And the CT was negative, so the hyperthermia wasn't due to brain damage. Her pulse sped up as she called for the nurse to start cooled IV fluids. She had to try something to help this man, but damned if she knew what the hell she was treating. Shivers skittered up and down her neck, part frustration and part fear for this man's life.

When things don't add up in the ER, people end up dead
.

Marcie poked her head into the doctor's work area. “Teleradiology's on the phone.” Allison picked up the line, ready for her colleague to shed light on the mystery of this patient.

“Hi, Al, it's Becca Lawson in Baker City.”

“What do you see?”

“Nothing much. What was the mechanism of injury?”

“Car went down the bank off the interstate, rolled a couple times. Restrained passenger, stable in the ER, with a head lac that I'll sew up in a few.” She paused. “Oh, and a temperature reading of 107. I can't find any reason for that. He should at least be sweating and seizing by now, with markers of muscle breakdown. Yet there's nothing on lab. You see anything to explain it on your side?”

“No, his head is fine. There's some swelling near the head wound and some facial bruises. I presume he's black and blue?”

“Uh-huh.”

“His neck and spine are clear, no swelling, no fracture. Abdomen and chest are clear.” She whistled low. “Are you sure you've got the right patient? I'd say this guy cheated death.”

“It's the right guy. Anything to explain the hyperthermia? Maybe something in the midbrain?”

“Hmm.” Taps and mouse clicks transmitted through the phone. “Nothing. No blood, no swelling. Did you check your thermometer?”

Allison blew an exasperated breath. “Yes, it's reading correctly.”

“Don't know.” Dr. Lawson chuckled. “This is why I have the computer screen and not a stethoscope.”

“Ugh. Thanks, Becca.” She set down the phone and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

A nurse's scream shattered the silence.

“Stop it!” Allison stepped into the fray. “Stop it!” she shouted at the man.

He froze.

Her patient, fully awake now, had
sat up
while still attached to the backboard—now in two pieces. She'd never seen anyone break a board before. She hadn't even thought such an act was humanly possible. The Velcro straps should have torn first.

Nurses hung on as the man struggled to free his arms, his muscles bulging. One IV line had ripped out. Dark blood dripped from his arm to the floor until a nurse pressed four-by-four gauze pads onto the IV site.

“Get. Me. Out. Of. Here,” he ground out, his strong jaw immobilized by the cervical collar.

“Okay, cool it.”

He followed her every move with a dark brown gaze fixed on her.

She gulped. “First of all, your CT scan is clear. So if you calm down for a second, we can get you out of the collar and off of what's left of our backboard.”

He tensed briefly and then relaxed as the nurses took the collar and backboard on their way out the door. When he swung both legs around to the side of the bed, his feet touched the floor. He stared at Allison to the point where heat crawled up her neck onto her face. Even covered in blood, bandaged up, and bruised, this handsome man oozed intensity. A flutter in her belly reminded her to stay professional.

“Okay, Mister … ?”

He paused, brows furrowed for a long moment, then met her gaze with an astonished expression. His handsome face lit up as if he remembered something important.

Her mouth went dry.

“Blackstone. Peter Blackstone.” His rumbling, low voice ran right though her, and Allison suppressed the urge to shiver.

“All right, Mr. Blackstone, since you're awake, let me ask you a few questions—”

With a slash of his hand, he cut her off. “I need
you
to answer some questions. Where am I? What happened? Who are you? What did I say to you people earlier?” He rubbed his hand over the knot on his forehead.

She took a deep breath. “Okay, then. You're in La Grande, Oregon. The EMTs extracted you from your SUV, which rolled down an embankment. You and your demolished vehicle almost ended up in the river. You haven't said a word since you got here, on account of being unconscious. And I'd say you're pretty lucky you can move
and
talk after that bad of an accident. As for who I am? I'm Dr. La Croix, the doctor who is trying to help you.”
Some thanks
.

She turned toward the counter and snapped on a pair of gloves. When she glanced over her shoulder, the stark, lost expression on his hard features made her pause. Her tone softened. “Now, I'd like to keep patching you back together. So if you don't mind, I need to take care of that cut on your head. Would you please lie back?”